


The hardest thing to fix (is you)

by geoclaire



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Recovery, cophine - Freeform, it isn't a thing yet but it should be, punky monkey brotp, recovery fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 16,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2133918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geoclaire/pseuds/geoclaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of season two, Cosima finds a cure for her illness. The clone family gathers around her as she recovers from the clone disease. Recovery is always harder than you think.</p><p>Eventual cophine, punky monkey brotp, trying to make sense of the science of the stem cell treatment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The lines between sleep and waking used to be softer.

Even when sudden, the waking process itself wasn’t painful, wasn’t a complex thing of red and bile, simply a transition that might end roughly, but without edges. Now the two blur together in a way she is rarely conscious of, unable to extend beyond experience to a world of reflection or thought, able only to gasp for air or vomit a vile mix of blood and green and yellow bile, or both at once. If she could think, she’d know she was at risk of aspirating. She’d want to know if the so called cure was going to cure her or if it had been far too late.

if she was aware enough to think, she would turn to the side to vomit and not risk her hair, the bed sheets, and her life every time her body convulsed to reject the attempt to save her life.

 —————————————————————————————————————————————

"You said the treatment would help her!"

On the other end of the Skype connection, Delphine is distraught, hands over half her face. “It will. It _will!_ It’s just - she is so sick already - her body is strangling - _merde_! - struggling. Her immune system was suppressed to give her the treatment, and then - her body tries to fight the stem cells, it’s stressful. But I think, think that part is nearly over. It’s just - her body - she has to rebuild her lungs, her organs. She needs a lot of nutrients and she doesn’t have them…”

"So she’s starving and still has shithouse lungs." Sarah concludes succinctly. It’s not that she doesn’t care Delphine is struggling, it’s just that Cosima needs her more right now. She doesn’t have time to babysit her.

If it’s possible, Delphine goes paler. “Oui. Yes. She needs food, water, warmth… All the support she can get.”

Sarah scowls, “That’s not going to happen when she pukes up everything we can get in her at all. She’s sleeping when she’s not choking or puking. And she doesn’t need to be any warmer, she’s burnin’ up!”

Delphine bites her lip, her fingers picking at one another, rough enough to draw blood. “Can you get - an IV? Can Scott steal something, maybe, from the DYAD?”

"We haven’t seen Scott since he gave us the syringe for Cos. Disappeared into the night before the psycho pirate could get her claws into him." Sarah pauses, thinking before she gestures Felix over. "Fi, do you know anyone we could get an IV from?"

Felix, come to stand behind her, sniffs dramatically before he answers, “About bloody time you asked. Am I really the last person you think of when it comes to injecting supplies?” He pauses long enough for them to think about that. “I truly hope Alison was your next port of call, do you not think these things through?”

 —————————————————————————————————————————————

The IV line, inserted by Felix with a level of expertise Sarah would prefer to pretend she doesn’t know about, at least makes Cos look more like a deeply unwell human being than skin-draped bones. Cosima hasn’t eaten since before she let Scott sink a syringe of stem cell goo into her veins, but the IV keeps her hydrated (says Delphine) so long as they replace the fluid every four hours.

She doesn’t wake up, at least, not beyond what she needs to cough and choke and expel whatever fluid is currently clogging her lungs and body. It’s been nearly a week since her eyes were open, let alone lucid, and she looks different now. More like Sarah, without her glasses or her eyeliner, only Sarah had never had cheekbones that could cut you.

 —————————————————————————————————————————————

Around day nine, they give up. Cosima sleeps more easily, but -

"Seriously, she’s puked in her hair more times than I can count, Fi!" Sarah gestures wildly, her look shouting discomfort as loud as distaste. "Are we just gonna ignore it? You think she’s going to care more about us cutting her hair than it being a snarl of shit?"

Felix gives her a moue of disdain as only he can, almost as good as when she used to throw her dirty socks onto his pillow. “You going to be the one to tell Goldilocks that we shaved her girlfriend’s head like she has bloody consumption? Because I don’t envy you the task.”

He’s got a point, always does, but - “Berloody Delphine can bloody deal with it. She’s not here, Fi, and we’re not coping, in case you missed it.” She drags her hands through her own hair. “If Delphine or hell, Mrs S was here to help us, that’d be one thing, but they’re not.  Cos is fucking filthy and I haven’t seen Kira in days and I…” she stops. “Just help me. Please?”

He shrugs, gracefully discomforted. “Fine.” He tosses his own hair, then adds “– But  I am not helping you shave her head. Do you know what a raving dyke she would look like? Those glasses, really.”

He disappears into the bathroom before reappearing with scissors, comb, and electric clippers for good measure. Sarah wonders where Cosima’s glasses even are. 

 —————————————————————————————————————————————

On day eleven, she wakes up. It’s weird timing, because Felix is just cleaning her neck and face as Sarah tries to understand Alison’s instructions, delivered over the phone, on how to change sheets when there’s a person actually in the bed. Her stress levels are way too high to handle Alison’s means of instruction.

It’s not ideal, either, because Cosima twitches as she wakes and gives Felix the fright of his life, so she wakes into a room of British-inflected cursing.

“ - About gave me fucking heart failure, do you know what that does to a boys’ looks? _Jesus_.” Felix swears, his washcloth dropping to the floor.

Cosima blinks, before squinting, trying to see their faces. She coughs, too, but it’s a dry thing, caught in her throat and not wrenching from her chest, and she catches sight of the IV in her arm when she tries to cover her mouth.

Hesitant, Sarah nudges Felix out of the way so she can sit on the bed. “Hey, Cos.”

Cosima smiles her automatic smile, small but present, before her eyes flick between the two of them again and her forehead wrinkles.

“… the hell happened to you two?” she mumbles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I completed some research in order to write this fic and it suggested to me that the stem cell treatment that DYAD tried for Cosima on the show made zero sense in that they would have had to destroy her existing immune system first. I've tried to square that circle while also not getting too involved in the science. Happy to chat about potential outcomes and how the whole thing works if anyone's interested.


	2. Chapter 2

The sheets smelt so vile that Sarah tried not to inhale when she stripped the bed. She didn’t hesitate before tugging away the mattress protector as well. There were still stains on the mattress below - blood, and less determinate stains - but it was a huge improvement. Cosima might actually agree to get back into this bed once Felix finished bathing her. There was no way of knowing that it had been new barely a fortnight before, bought when it became obvious that Cosima wouldn’t be going back to the DYAD and Sarah wouldn’t be going home.

Cos had been the one who paid for it - “PhD money might as well do me some good,” she’d shrugged - and she’d asked for it to be set it by the window. Sarah had helped her drag Felix’s art slowly aside until they could nestle the bed into a corner where Cosima would be able to see out. It’d been a pain in the ass to maneuver to, but standing with an armful of bloody sheets, Sarah understood why she had wanted it. Bad enough if she was dying, but at least here she had a chance of looking out at life. That was Cosima all over.

From the bathroom came a thud, a yelp, and a splash. A very girly yelp, at that - she’d have to rib Felix later. She heard the sound of a mumbled laugh, and would have smiled if she hadn’t winced, waiting for the cough.  

The cracking sound made her shoulders tense, her back straightening involuntarily, and she turned away, brusquely gathering her armful of bedding to dump into Felix’s pathetic washing machine. Three rotations on a soak cycle might begin to shift the grime, but for now, she’d need to find another set of sheets. And probably some more of the blankets she’d swiped by the shelfload from Mrs S’ place.

  
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

It’s Alison who finally finds Cosima’s glasses. They haven’t seen her in over a week - Gemma has the flu, and Alison’s rightfully anxious at the risk of exposing Cosima to anything else. _Immunosuppressed_ , says the Delphine in Sarah’s head, and Sarah may not like her much but it’s pretty clear that keeping Cosima and her sisters alive has become her top priority. Alison was right to keep away.

It did mean that she and Fi had been on their own, though – Mrs S and Helena had both disappeared in the night, a cryptic text from S the only notable distinction. Marion Bowles had apparently pulled some kind of strings long enough to let Scott develop his stem cell therapy for Cosima, using the embryos Helena had left behind her (and what the hell were they doing in her possession? Jesus), but once he’d handed over a container and a syringe to Cosima, he too had high tailed it. Sarah had some doubts about his ability to stay under DYAD’s radar, but that was a problem she had to trust he could solve.

Alison, though… Once she heard Cosima was awake, there was no keeping her away. She’d appeared like a tiny god of domesticity, armed with everything from extra blankets to bleach to vegetables, and immediately started scolding Felix, who had clearly not cleaned his apartment since the one time Alison had done it for him. Sarah tried not to laugh - the sharp end of Alison’s temper was not a good place to be - but Alison’s sounds of disgust at the state of his bathroom would put a crack in any straight face.

Even Cosima twitched bleerily awake at the sound of her haranguing, a testament to Alison’s volume or perhaps her pitch. Cos blinked slowly, her mouth open, and Sarah turned to pitch a balled up cloth at the bathroom door. It missed, but it hit with the wall with a satisfying _thwop._ “Alison can you bloody _keep it down_? You might scare Felix into cleaning but you’re waking up the invalid, too.”

That made Alison reappear in the doorway, gloves firmly in place and sponge in hand, smiling tightly. She hasn’t seen Cosima awake yet, and Sarah found herself glad they hadn’t found Cos’s glasses if it meant she couldn’t see the uneasy look Alison was giving her.

But at least you couldn’t hear it in her voice. “I’m glad to see you awake. How are you feeling?”

Cosima’s non-IV laden hand twitched, likely attempting one of her broad gestures. “Been better,” she breathed after a long second. Her hand stilled. “You?”

“Oh I’m - I’m fine,” Alison touched her hair, her chin, before remembering her gloves. She disappeared back into the bathroom for a moment before returning unencumbered, coming closer to the bed. “The kids have both been sick, and Donnie had taken a lot of time off work while I was, uh, away, so I’ve been on flu duty. It seemed safer to stay away.”

Cosima nodded a little. “Good idea,” she said softly, her eyelids drooping til Sarah couldn’t see her pupils. Alison sensed it; she came closer, her eyes running over the ruins of Cosima’s hair before she dropped to crouch by the bed. “Is there anything you want me to do while I’m here? Soup? A bath?” she paused, “Do you want me to read to you?”

Cosima smiled a little at that, but her eyes were already closed. Sarah thought she’d probably fallen asleep halfway through the sentence. She looked at Alison, their eyes on a level with the way she sat on the bed. “Soup might be an idea. Fi and I are lousy cooks.”

“Mmmm,” Alison glanced away and then at Cosima again, “She could definitely use the calories.” She turned to Sarah then, “Have you really lost her glasses? I hoped Felix was kidding.”

Sarah winced, there was really no defending that. “They’re around… somewhere. We took them off her when she was sleeping and then… god, I don’t know, we didn’t have much reason to look out for them, you know?” she paused guiltily, “Cos says she has another pair in her stuff somewhere.”

Alison rolled her eyes, “I swear to – you two are absurd. And she’s nearly as bad. Did you at least look down the side of the bed?”

“I - what?”

Alison didn’t even respond to that, just looked heavenward again before she dropped to her knees, looking under the bed before reaching and twisting beneath where Cosima was sleeping. In seconds, a pair of dust encrusted dark glasses was in her hand.

“There,” she said, breathing only a little hard, “What did I tell you?”


	3. Chapter 3

Alison might be uptight and kinda nuts, but her vegetable soup gave every appearance of being magical.  She’d knocked it up in the space of an hour after sterilising every inch of Felix’s bathroom, and the smell got into every inch of the apartment. Sarah figured it had even gotten into Cos’s subconscious somehow, because she’d woken up again not long after Alison left, and she’d actually asked for food. It was the first time Sarah had seen her keep food down in over a week.

Eight meals of soup later, Cosima was clearly pretty over soup, but she was also starting to look better in a way that made Sarah feel safe enough to leave the apartment. Not that she had any plans of going far, only to the bar at the end of the street, where Cal had assured her the wi-fi network was totally insecure in a way that made it entirely too easy to hide a few Skype calls. He’d done something to her laptop to make it difficult to find, too, but told her calling from the bar would still be safer, and now Cos was doing better, she felt she could reasonably leave for a half hour or so. She wanted to talk to her daughter, damnit. And Delphine deserved a call too.

Seeing Kira on a computer screen wasn’t as good as being able to hold her. Nowhere near. But seeing her smiling and safe with Cal went a long way towards unclenching one of the knots residing in Sarah’s stomach. There were others, definitely; one fearful of Rachel’s inevitable revenge, another long running concern about money, and a large one that centered around Cosima’s wellbeing, currently smaller but still a potent source of stomach acid. Seeing Kira, though… that went a long way towards making her world better.

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

“How much better is aunty Cosima?” Kira’s question knocked Sarah out of her thoughts. She’d been distracted by the need to examine her daughter, to try and identify any remaining harm the bone marrow extraction had done her.

“Lots better, monkey,” she paused, trying to think how an eight year old would understand a long recovery, but was interrupted.

“Can I come see her?”

“Uh, not yet. She’s doing better, but uh…” Sarah cast about for how to explain Cosima’s slow recovery. “You remember when you broke your arm, sweetheart?”

Kira nodded, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yeah, um. You know how it hurt when you first got the cast and then it got better? And then we took the cast off, but your arm was all weak and sore, not just where you broke it?”

“Yeah… is aunty Cosima like that?”

“Yeah, monkey. So… she’s not actually sick-sick any more, but her body has to heal up now. So she’s really really tired. Even eating makes her tired, she took a nap after breakfast.”

Kira nodded quickly, but her face was uncertain, insecure. It made Sarah’s heart clench, an irregular beat against her sternum. “Mommy… if I can’t come see aunty Cosima, can you come here?”

"… Not yet, monkey. Aunty Cos still needs me to take care of her."

Kira was clearly unconvinced, ” But why do you have to take care of her? Can’t aunty Alison help?”

"Aunty Alison is helping, sweetheart, but aunty Cos needs me too." Sarah had to think fast, "Like, you know how Mrs S is best at, uh, making you toast when you’re sick, but I’m better at singing? Yeah? And sometimes you want singing when you’re sleepy, but sometimes you want toast?"

At that, Kira smiled, disbelieving, “Do you sing to aunty Cosima?”

Sarah laughed aloud at the sheer thought, “Not usually, monkey, but I will if she needs me to.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

After that, talking to Delphine was almost easy, even if she responded with panic every time Sarah called.

“Is Cosima -”

“Relax, she’s alive,” Sarah interrupted, fluid from practice. “She’s doin’ a lot better actually. Like heaps.”

The tension dropped out of Delphine visibly, her shoulders lowering three inches or more. “Is she conscious? Does she know where - ”,  she interrupted herself, clutching at her own crossed arms, “Tell me. Please.”

Sarah had expected this, gave her the rundown she’d prepared in advance, “She woke up like three days ago and has been doing better since. She still sleeps most of the time but she’s eating again and she pukes less often. Thank God,” Sarah added. “Alison made her soup and we’ve been pouring it into her.”

Delphine’s smile quirked into being at that. “I think she would hate that.”

“She does, but she’s not up to doing anything but complain about it, so we spoon it into her til she goes back to sleep,” Sarah paused, thinking, “And then she sleeps better, too. It’s like freaking magic soup, to be honest,” she added, half serious.

But Delphine’s smile had gone away already, one hand coming up to pick at her shirt collar, the other still holding her elbow. “And her - her cough. Is it…?”

“It’s better. Heaps better,” Sarah reassured quickly. “I haven’t seen her bring up blood today. And no seizures, not at all. Just… her cough still makes that cracking noise sometimes, you know? I don’t like the sound of it.”

If she’d hoped for reassurance from Delphine, to be told that the cough would go away on its own, she was out of luck. “She might - probably she she is still healing. But it will be very easy for her to get sick now, when her immune system is still redeveloping.”

That made Sarah’s heart wring in a way that had become far too familiar, a cocktail of fear and anxious hope that she worked hard to suppress from showing. “Alison’s kids have been sick, had the flu. But she stayed away, like right away, and Alison’s fine,” she grasped at straws, “It’s not like Cos got better and then worse. Her cough just still sounds bad, that’s all.”

Dephine shook her head, “It might not be that, the flu - she could have caught anything and she would still get very sick. She should be in hospital, mon dieu.”

Sarah let that slide, they both knew why hospital wasn’t going to happen. “But she’s doing better, Delphine, like, really better. She’s more alert, she talks to us and knows who we are. Keeps trying to read and then falls asleep and drops the damn book.”

Delphine’s half smile came back at that, fond and charmed and still afraid all in one. “That’s good, that sounds like her.”

Sarah smiled at that, “We tried TV, but she kept getting mad at all the reality shows, and Felix banned her,” she changes tack, “But Delphine. She’s awake now.”

“I know.” Her smile died again.

Sarah pushed on, “Delphine, she’s awake. She’s going to start asking about you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are jokes about books in this chapter, let me know if you find them. ;)

It was odd, but it was the boredom that ultimately got to Cosima. Being sick had been terrifying, but in its own way, even getting worse had been interesting. New symptoms had at least meant new evidence on the endeavour to find a cure and save her life. Getting better, on the other hand, had no intellectual value whatsoever, unless it was cataloguing new colours of coughed up phlegm - a science experiment the world could surely do without.

It wasn’t like there was even anything to read in the damn loft, not once she’d gotten through _The Island of Dr Moreau_. Felix had offered her free range of his bookshelf, but given the genres ran the gamut from medium to hard core gay erotica, with a poorly concealed edition of _Twilight_ tucked in the back, there wasn’t anything she was going to get enthralled in. In a moment of desperation, she’d picked up one of the less extreme looking tomes and skimmed it, but all that had done was demonstrate that it wasn’t something she wanted to pursue. There were only so many ways to poorly describe rimming, and the story she’d perused appeared to contain all of them.

That had been closely followed by the occasion that Felix was calling the reality tv incident of 2012, and after that she’d been banned from watching tv. Which was a problem, because there were only so many ways to entertain yourself when you were basically bedridden. She would have killed for a spliff and her Nintendo, but both had been left stateside when she’d first gotten on a bus to Toronto, not to mention weed was almost definitely a no go for the foreseeable future. Her best prospect now was the promise Alison had made to bring her something to read on her next visit, and she was torn between hanging out for it and being convinced Alison was going to bring her _The Notebook_ and _Fifty Shades of Grey_ in a false cover.

All of that added up to bored, and bored let her think about Delphine, and where she was, and if she was okay, and none of that was good news. Not when she hadn’t heard from her since before she’d presumably left the country, and Delphine had told her that they were both under threat if she returned, before breaking down and swearing that she would make it back to see Cosima. Those two things and total radio silence spelled a world of ills, especially where the DYAD was involved. Delphine had made a lot of mistakes where Cosima was concerned, but she knew - knew - Delphine would not have stayed politely at her new desk in Frankfurt  when she believed Cosima was dying.

That conclusion did not lend itself to comforting thoughts.

"Felix?"

He came out of the kitchen nook, sticking his head around into her corner. “Yeah, Dreads?”

"How long til Sarah gets back?"

He looked up, glanced at the only clock in the apartment, one located annoyingly out of sight of Cosima’s bed. “Don’t know. Probably like another twenty minutes. Why?”

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “You wanna help me take a bath?”

He came and took her arm before she needed to ask, steadying her onto her feet, then looked her over, crown of head to the tips of her socked toes. “Darling, I have a much better idea.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————-  
  


Neither Cosima nor Felix was immediately visible when Sarah got back, and her heart rate had already begun to rise when she recognised the criss cross of their voices behind the beaded curtain of the bathroom door. She dropped her grocery bags on the sole counter, largely juice and ice cream for Cosima, before going to hover outside the bathroom.

Felix had Cosima sitting in front of the mirror, a towel around her shoulders and scissors in his hands. He was focussing on her hair, so Cosima saw her in the mirror first, recognizing her silhouette even without the benefit of her glasses. “Sarah,” she said lowly, and Felix looked up.

"Hello, stranger. We were starting to wonder if the DYAD got you," he said archly, and snipped his scissors for emphasis.

Sarah yanked her clone phone from her pocket and shook it at him, not a notification on the screen. “I see that. So worried you called and texted and checked, I see.”

He sniffed, “Wouldn’t want you to think I cared, now would I.” Cosima was twisting around to look at them both, squinting to see their faces, and Felix repositioned her easily, hands on her forehead and neck to turn her back to the mirror, “Thoughts? I was going to trim her hair down into a pixie cut, but it’s growing back curly.”

Sarah gestured in the vague direction of Cosima’s head. “What, Cos, you don’t want the hacked off dreads look?”

Cosima gave her a tired version of her big grin in reply, “Felix assured me I look consumptive.”

Felix snorted. “What I said was you look bloody tragic,” he clicked his scissors again, “Come on, what’s it to be? I figure I have about ten minutes before you need another nap.”

  
—————————————————————————————————————————————-

Oddly, the haircut made Cosima look more like herself, though it couldn’t have been further from her previous look. Even though Felix had been right and she’d gone back to sleep immediately after, her shorn head and glasses prompted an immediate pang of recognition when Sarah saw her slumped form on the couch.

A cupboard door shut behind her, and then Felix reappeared, handing Sarah a glass of whiskey where she stood. “Her hair’s coming back curly,” he said again, and Sarah raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you said. My hair’s kinda curly when it’s short, too, you know that. An’ remember what Kira was like as a baby?”

He shrugged at that, sipping his whiskey. “I forgot that. I was thinkin’ more…” he gestured loosely, “Well, more like Helena curly I guess. I was wondering if, you know, her stem cells and all that…” he waved his hand again, loosely, helplessly.

Sarah stared at him, “You think her hair’s growing back more curly ‘cause she’s got Helena’s stem cells in her now? Holy shit, Fi,” she gulped from her own drink, needing the security offered by her glass, “How the hell should I know?”

“Well, dreads there can’t exactly answer me, can she?” He winced, “I’m gonna need to stop calling her that now, aren’t I. Bugger.”

“Prob’ly,” she couldn’t answer his other questions. “I dunno, Fi. I mean, we’re all the same, right? That’s why Helena’s stem cells were meant to work. If we’re the same, it shouldn’t matter.”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know, Sarah. I’m just saying I don’t remember your hair ever curling like that.”


	5. Chapter 5

It took a few days, but Alison did eventually come through on the books front, and Cosima made a point of mentally retracting every unkind thought she had had on the subject. Because Alison did better than bring her books; she brought her a tablet e reader, already loaded with over a hundred novels (none of which was _The Notebook_ ).

When Cosima tried to thank her, though, Alison just looked uncomfortable. “It was Beth’s,” she muttered, and toyed with the edges of her cardigan, “She loaded it with a gun owner’s manual so I could read it without being obvious.”

Cosima nodded and chose not to ask any more questions. It wasn’t any of her business, even if a solid part of her had always drawn question marks around the exact nature of Alison and Beth’s relationship.

And it turned out Beth had had far wider reading tastes than Cosima would have guessed - she counted four Man Booker winners and what appeared to be the complete works of Margaret Atwood in among the rest. Not her usual style, maybe, but certainly a damn sight better than hanging around the apartment with nothing to do at all. She picked a novel at random ( _Lady Oracle_ ) and, at Felix’s meaningful look, settled herself back into bed, propped up on four pillows and one of Kira’s soft toys.

When she woke herself up coughing (bringing up a thankfully bloodless fluid onto her quilt), she was pleased to have gotten through more than a chapter before falling asleep. She even remembered most of it.

—————————————————————————————————————————————-----------------

They made a point of not leaving her alone. It spanned the gamut from endearing to utterly claustrophobic, but it was also the most time she’d ever spent with her clones, and the combination of time and nothing else to do let her notice things she would probably never have known otherwise. Things like the number of Beth’s mannerisms that Sarah didn’t share, or the way in which her protectiveness of her clones possibly equalled that of her devotion to Kira. Like the extent of Felix’s devotion to Sarah, probably beyond all rational bounds, and his genuine fondness for Alison.

Or like, the fact that Alison was surprisingly good at bathing her.

"Head back, eyes closed," Alison reminded, and Cosima found herself complying without thinking about it. Alison had one hand shielding her eyes, the other tipping a jug of water to rinse conditioner from her hair. The warm water felt good, poured slowly over her scalp, as did the water she sat in. The whole thing was soothing, relaxing her sore muscles and bones, and warm in a way she couldn’t seem to manage with clothes and quilts. It felt good just to notice that something felt good.  

It probably should have been awkward, sitting naked in the bath in front of a woman she wasn’t sleeping with. Hell, wasn’t even close to. But Alison was so matter of fact about the whole thing that Cosima had barely remembered to feel uncomfortable. She’d waited outside until Cosima was in the tub, and gotten the okay to come in, but then she’d moved to washing Cosima’s back and legs and arms with a washcloth with barely a pause. And she’d been gentle, too, something Cosima truly appreciated when it felt like her body had recently been dismantled and pieced back together with screws.

"I feel like this should be weird," Cosima eventually mentioned.

On her knees by the bath, Alison paused. “What should be weird? Specifically.”

Scrunching her face up, Cosima shrugged. “No one’s given me a bath since I was like, eight,” she stopped to reconsider, “Except Felix, obvs.”

Alison raised her eyebrows. “Felix has been giving you baths? Not Sarah?”

"… Yeah, actually. Sarah ducks out every time. Like it makes her uncomfortable." she shrugged, "I don’t mind, suspect Felix’s idea of grooming is a higher grade than Sarah’s anyway."

Alison still seemed unimpressed. “You should have said something sooner. I don’t mind helping out, not now Gemma is doing better.”

Ah, Gemma. “Do you still bathe her?”

Alison tipped her head to her shoulder, then back. “Not usually, any more. I just check in at the end when she’s nearly done,” she smiled downwards, “but I bathed her for years, of course. Both of them. Oscar was a little prince, but Gemma always fought me washing behind her ears, and she managed to soak me almost every time with her splashing. She was better for Donnie, but I think he let her get away with not washing her ears.”

"Cheating, really," Cosima observed, wrinkling her nose.

"Well, counterproductive, certainly," Alison leaned back on her heels, stretching her back out. "I assume you can manage the rest?"

"Uh, yeah." she found the washcloth and waved it weakly. "Can you, uh…"

"I’ll wait outside, call when you need me. Do _not_ attempt to get out without me, Felix told me about your dizzy spells.”

“Uhhh, okay.” Being bathed by Alison might not have been as deeply embarrassing as she would have expected - maybe it was the clone thing? Or that Alison read as incredibly heterosexual ninety-nine percent of the time? - but having to be picked up naked off the floor was certain to be horrifying. And _cold_.

Alison nodded, standing up without touching the floor or walls, already unrolling her sleeves and sweater cuffs. “Call me, Cosima. I mean it.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————-----------------

Being bathed was almost the least of it. Her clones really didn’t leave her alone. Sarah or Alison or Felix was always nearby, something it took her an embarrassingly long time to realize. It wasn’t until Felix was entertaining her with tales of his conquests one night as he painted that she realized she hadn’t seen him go out since she’d been there.

"Have you lost your game, Fi?"

"What am I gonna do, bring them back here while you’re coughing your lungs out in the corner? Sexy as," he retorted, turning back to his painting.

Sarcastic or not, they’d gathered around her, trying to take care of her. Sacrificing their time and safety and any remaining goodwill from the DYAD to try and keep her alive. She’d told Sarah once that they were her biological imperative; maybe she had been more right than she knew.

Maybe too - she yawned - it was time for another nap. She cleared her throat, and snuggled down with Kira’s monkey. Coughed, and was asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Kira kept asking to see Cosima, and at some stage, Sarah lost her ability to say no. She wasn’t totally thrilled about it, and had no intention of putting them in a room together - Why tempt Duncan and the DYAD? - but Kira was insistent, and phones existed for a reason. Skype would have been better, but a cell phone was immensely more portable.

Having lost the main battle, she put up a spirited retreat. She was still concerned enough about Cosima to go over guidelines with Kira beforehand. Enthusiasm was okay, tiring Cosima out wasn’t. Asking about her health would be rude, and putting pressure on her to be allowed to come visit was totally out. And when Sarah said the conversation was over, that was it, no whining.

Even Cosima scowled at that one, her eyebrows rising. Sarah rolled her eyes at her clone, she and Kira were as bad as each other, and it would have been irritating if she weren’t so utterly charmed by how taken with each other they were. But what else was she expecting? Kira took to most people with ease; she’d progressed to hugging Helena at a point when Sarah was still thinking about hitting her with a chunk of rebar. Cosima was marginally more reserved, but once she’d formed an attachment to someone, she’d talk about their awesomeness even in her sleep (Sarah had totally failed to understand the obsession with Delphine’s hair right up until she had met her). The two of them together were a bundle of excited enthusiasm she couldn’t begin to compete with - hence the insistence on guidelines.

She’d have been offended at how quickly Kira got her off the phone if she hadn’t been able to hear the excited squeal she let out when Cosima got on the phone from across the room. Instead, she made a point of eyeballing the time; her plan was to check in with Cosima after ten minutes and cut her off at twenty.

Cos might have been doing better, but she also had a strong tendency to overestimate what she could currently achieve. Felix had told Sarah about having caught Cosima as she got up too fast and began to faint, and Sarah had become rapidly expert in recognising the whiteness around her jaw and the ways the tendons in her neck stood out when Cosima got too tired. She was pushing herself hard, at a point when that meant napping on the couch instead of in bed, and Sarah was pretty sure she’d stopped regaining weight. In a way, it had been easier when she was too sick to move around; she wasn’t able to fight the IV or the oxygen tubes then. Now it was a hassle to have her wear a beanie over her clipped hair.

She was scratching at her head under that knit beanie now, curled up on the couch and listening to Kira chat. Sarah wasn’t entirely sure, but from what she heard of Cosima’s end, they seemed to be talking about Harry Potter. Between them, Duncan and Cosima seemed to have gotten Kira into a sci fi and fantasy phase, but at least Harry Potter seemed a little more age appropriate than that nightmarish Doctor Moreau.

She didn’t want to be the person who would sit and monitor their conversation, though, so after a minute she went to Cosima’s bed and brought her back a blanket. The loft was chilly, and she wasn’t going to be able to coax Cos back into bed without interrupting them, but then - she draped the blanket over Cosima, who pulled a face at her - Cos also couldn’t complain without interrupting Kira.

“Yeah, I know, Hermione is bossy for a while, isn’t she?” Cosima asked sweetly.

Okay, so maybe she could.

Sarah took the hint and went into the kitchen, started to look for something that Alison would consider food, even though she knew Cosima wasn’t picky. Between them, Delphine and Alison had managed to press on Sarah that Cos would need good nutrition for the foreseeable future, and it was harder when she’d been mostly vegetarian for years. Sarah wasn’t much of a cook to begin with and excluding anything that had feet had made it a lot harder.

She stared into the fridge for inspiration, then pulled out ingredients for an omelette. It would be the third omelette she’d made since Monday, but it would also contain vegetables, eggs and dairy, all of which were on Alison’s approved list. Delphine had been less picky, had simply mandated that Cosima should be eating anything that didn’t come packaged as a single-serve to be cooked in the microwave. Sarah was pretty sure there was a story behind that one, probably revolving heavily around university students and weed.

She started chopping vegetables, leaning heavily to the green end of the spectrum. Cosima was weirdly fond of spinach, and she was totally prepared to bribe her if that’s what it took. But it only took her another minute or two before she heard shuffling, and Cosima appeared - sans blanket, but wearing her ugg boots and beanie - to hand her the phone.

“Kira wants to say bye. She may also -” she coughed into her elbow, hand to her chest, “have a question about dragons versus dinosaurs.”

“Oh, Jesus, really?” she took the phone, pressing it immediately to her ear. “Hey, monkey. Not too cool for me now you know aunty Cosima’s doing okay?”

Cos smiled, then turned, hand on the bench to steady herself before she shuffled away, thankfully in the direction of her bed and not the couch. That distracted Sarah, so it took a moment to hear Kira’s sniffle.

She put the knife down. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

That had Kira start to cry in earnest over the phone. Sarah panicked, left hand flying to grip her hair, unable to hold her daughter. “Kira, honey, I need you to calm down a little, okay? I need you to tell me what’s wrong.” she gripped the phone, “Is there someone there? Is something happening?” she cast about, “Did aunty Cos say something that upset you?”

It took a long minute of sniffs and sobs before Kira could even respond. “You said aunty Cos was getting better!”

It felt like her heart was being clenched by a fist in her chest. Sarah took a long breath, let it out slowly. “She is, baby. I swear. I know - I know she sounds bad, okay? But she’s doing a lot better now. She’s tired, mostly, like - like I told you before. But she is getting better.”

That didn’t seem to help. If anything, it made it worse, Kira’s sobs becoming louder once more, breathing through her mouth like only a crying child could. Sarah hushed and shushed and hummed the best she could, dying a little inside all the while, trying to just calm her daughter down. Jesus. She’d thought this was a bad idea, but she’d thought that for Cosima’s sake, not Kira’s.

Eventually, she managed to persuade Kira to pass the phone to Cal. He’d clearly been nearby, and anxious, for he took over the call immediately.

“Jesus, Sarah, what’d you tell her? Did someone die?”

“No! No, nothing like that,” she weighed it up for a second, but there was clearly nothing to be gained at this point by not trusting Cal. “She talked to Cosima and it upset her. I think she thinks Cos is dyin’. And she’s not, she just - she just sounds bad, I swear. She’s sick, but she isn’t dying. I told Kira she’s getting better, but she doesn’t believe me.”

Cal paused, “Yeah, hang on Sarah,” there was a silence for a minute, then talking and movement in the background. Cal came back on the line, “I’ve got it now. I didn’t… didn’t know she was so attached.”

Sarah sighed, “Surprised me too. I did not see this coming.” she fidgeted with the food on the bench, “Can you give her a hug from me? Tell her I’m sorry. But I’m sure Cos is getting better.”

“Okay, I’m hugging her now, but the next one can be from you, okay? Deal, monkey?”

She heard Kira say a doubtful yes, and her hand clenched on the phone. But she had to get off if Cal was to have any hope at talking her daughter down. “Okay. Okay. Bye, Cal. Give her my love.”

“Will do. Bye, Sarah.”

“Bye, mummy.”

He must have tilted the phone down to Kira. Her heart clenched in on itself again, and then there was nothing but the dial tone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Delphine gets in contact, and things get more complicated.

She should have listened to Kira, because after that, things became rapidly more complicated, and their temporary haven became increasingly precarious.

For one, the phone didn't stop ringing; Marion Bowles called to give Sarah a heads' up that Rachel was showing signs of recovery (no new eyeball, of course, although Sarah wouldn't have put it past her to steal one from another clone if she could find a way; but she was through the surgeries and beginning to be able to walk around and rehabilitate), Cal called to let her know that Kira had calmed down, but that she was saying some weird things about Mrs S and remained convinced that Cosima was dying. Sarah didn't begin to know what to do with any of that.

Then some time past midnight, her phone rang and rang, and Sarah couldn't find the damn thing, and when she finally dug it out from a mass of discarded scarves and eyeliner pencils on the coffee table, the screen was blank. She stared at it bleerily, trying to catch up after being startled awake.

Then the ringing began again, despite her phone being immobile in her hand, and she was just sleep deprived enough to be bewildered before she heard Cosima's sleepy, confused, "Hello?" from the next room.

_That_ was enough to wake her up in a hurry. Cosima's clone phone hadn't rung the whole time she'd been here, and her regular phone had been switched off after she'd made a carefully phrased phone call to her parents. That it was ringing now… only five people had that number, and three of them had no need to call her. A call at two in the morning would only be coming from Scott or Delphine, and Sarah knew where her money was.

" _Delphine? Holy_ \- holy shit. Are you - are you okay? Where are you?"

Yeah, Scott had been pretty good at keeping his head below the parapet. Delphine, on the other hand, was always going to make some kind of desperate stand to get back to Cosima with a cure.

"No I'm - I'm fine. I mean, I'm not fine, I want you here, but I'm like, I'm getting better. And you -" Cos stopped, listened, and Sarah found herself craning to hear without meaning to, "Delphine, where _are_ you? Where have you been?" She paused again, longer this time. "No, that's - Delphine, don't. Please, don't. Not if you're going to be in danger."

Cosima was sitting up by then, legs over the side of the bed but still entirely tangled in the sheets, gesturing large with her free hand. Sarah avoided her eyes, giving her what little privacy she could. " _Del_ \- it isn't worth it. If you fly, they'll be records, they'll be able to find you. I want you here, but not if the DYAD track you down - do you not - _Del_ \- _Delphine_ \- no, I'm fine, I don't _need_ a cure, I need you alive and - I - _fuck_. Please don't. Please," her free hand was over her eyes now, "I understand, I just - I love you too. I can't do this without you. Please, _please_ , be safe."

Cosima dropped the phone into her lap, her head hanging low. Sarah waited, trying to give her a moment, then went to her, sitting carefully by Cosima on the bed. "Hey. You okay?"

When Cos opened her eyes, sans glasses, Sarah could see tears glinting on her lashes. That shook her; she'd seen Cosima cough and puke and spit blood, but even when she thought she might be dying, she'd barely seen her cry. It looked wrong on her face.

"How long have you known?"

That wasn't the response Sarah had expected. "What?"

The look Cosima shot her then held fire. "How long have you known where Delphine was? What she was doing?"

_Oh_. " - a while now. She managed to get a phone off the grid, kept calling while you were… out of it… Eventually I answered your phone." Sarah tried to smile, "Your girl is real persistent."

Cosima ignored that entirely. "She's in France, but I suppose you already know that."

Sarah found herself fumbling for words; Cosima was the last person she expected accusations from. "I uh - no, she was still in Germany last time I talked to her… trying to get the original DNA, she must have moved." She paused, "Is she coming here now? What's happened?"

Cosima didn't respond, and Sarah found herself edging closer, still hesitant to touch. "Cos, what's wrong?"

Cosima dropped her head into her hands for a long minute. When she lifted it, her face was unreadable, no more tears visible in her eyes. "What's wrong, Sarah? What's _wrong_? How long have you been in contact with her?"

"Um, a couple of weeks, I guess?" Sarah hazarded. It was probably longer, but admitting that seemed like a bad idea.

Cosima shook her head, disbelieving. "And you didn't think to, I don't know, _tell me_ that you'd heard from her? That you were chatting every other day? That she was rummaging around in the depths of the DYAD where anyone could fucking find out and decide that she was a problem? You didn't fucking think I might want to _know_ any of that?"

Sarah floundered. "No - Cos - I thought - you were so sick, I didn't think you'd remember -"

"I was not so goddamn sick I wouldn't have remembered _that_ , you idiot! I thought she was _dead_!"

Somewhere in the flat a tap was dripping, a repetitive _drub-drub-drub_ that Sarah had never noticed before. It was the only sound she could hear beyond Cosima's harsh breathing, crackling in her chest and through her mouth and nose. Cosima clutched her fist over her heart, rubbing hard, and Sarah opened her hands to her.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm really really sorry. I didn't know you were scared, I just," she grasped for answers, "I didn't want to tell you unless I had good news. I didn't want you to worry, alright?"

Cosima snorted, then had to catch her breath, her flattened palm now rubbing over her breastbone. "You really didn't think I'd be worried anyway?"

It wasn't like she didn't have a point, but - "I kinda thought you were focussed on the whole not-dying thing, to be honest. And you were sicker than you think," Cosima gave her a disbelieving look, and she supplied, "Last week you made a lot less sense than you thought you did."

Cosima huffed a dry laugh, the sound rattling from her throat. Sarah braced herself for more nature versus nurture, or worse, further accusations, but Cos went quiet instead, pulling her blanket around her shoulders and tucking her feet up onto the edge of the bed.

Moving slowly, Sarah put an arm around her shoulders, pulling Cosima into her. Beneath the blanket, her clone still felt too hot and too skinny, each shoulder blade distinct against Sarah's arm. Cosima turned her face into Sarah's shoulder, allowing the embrace, but not returning it.

It took a long minute before she spoke again. "Did you put her up to this?"

Sarah had to backtrack. "Did I… talk her into snatching the original DNA and doing a runner across Europe? Nope, that was all her idea."

"Of course it was," Cosima huddled in on herself still further, and Sarah found herself absently stroking her hot back, calming the racing heartbeat she felt too easily. "Sarah, how could you not tell me?"

Sarah couldn't let herself pause, or she wouldn't be able to say it. "I wasn't sure you'd need to know."

Cosima closed her eyes. "You thought I was going to die."

There it was. Sarah had kept so many things to herself, only halfway thinking her efforts would ever make a difference, without ever admitting why. She pursed her lips, looked down. "For a while, yeah."

Cosima nodded slowly. Then she turned away and coughed, coughed, coughed again, and gasped for air like it surprised even her. She hacked in a way Sarah hadn't heard in weeks, and she scrambled to get behind Cosima on the bed, recognising she was choking.

She didn't get there before Cos gasped, hacked again, and brought up a clump of mucus onto the floor. Even in the poor light from the window, Sarah could see it was clotted with blood.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure if this doesn't get me some comments, nothing will. Send me all of your feelings.


	8. Chapter 8

For reasons known only to herself, Alison carried a stethoscope in the first aid kit in her car. It was certainly strange, but it was also quite useful if you happened to be trying to care for a clone with a lung disease - an eventuality Alison had probably not, Sarah acknowledged, had in mind at the point of purchase.

 

Cosima, on the other hand, had suddenly become a lousy patient. Sure, she'd been increasingly resistant in the last week, wanting to do more and more herself as she’d become able, but it had suddenly leapt to all new levels. She'd flatly denied the need to check her vitals, refused to stay in her bed, even extended to batting Alison's stethoscope away like an irritable child. Sarah had been disconcerted by the behaviour, but Alison had swung into gear like she was going into battle. Against her will, and rather vocal protests, Cosima had been bathed, transferred into clean pyjamas (and actual pyjamas, not an old pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt swiped from Felix), and had her breathing listened to and temperature taken in short order. Now she was back in her bed, albeit sitting up, with a face like a thundercloud.

 

Alison sat back on her heels, reading the thermometer in her hand. "Well, I think that might explain a few things," she murmured, rubbing her free hand absently over her thigh.

 

Lurking by the door, Sarah took in Cosima's scowl and Alison's thoughtful face at once. "What? What explains what?"

 

Alison ignored the rude noise Cosima made. "She has a fever. 38.9 degrees, which would explain her charming behavior." She added pointedly. Cosima rolled her eyes in response.

 

Sarah's stomach turned over. She remembered how hot Cosima had seemed to her the night before, the irregularity of her anger; and her new crankiness started making a lot of sense. "So she's sick again, yeah? She got worse?"

 

" _She_ can hear you," Cosima interjected, "and she says she is fine." She rubbed her chest, fingers hard against her breastbone, then coughed twice with a disconcertingly wet sound. "I am _not_ getting worse, that doesn't make any sense when the treatment worked."

 

Sarah wrinkled her brow, and ducked down to meet her eyes, "Cos, seriously? Do you not hear yourself coughing?"

 

Cosima ignored her and looked away, her wrinkling of her nose contributing to a mutinous look. Alison caught Sarah’s hand in her own, catching her attention, "Actually, I think Cosima may be right. I don't think she's getting worse again."

 

Still half crouching, Sarah's eyebrows shot up. "I'm sorry, can YOU hear her coughing?" She asked, straightening up.

 

"Really, Sarah, there's no need to..." Alison started half heartedly, then gave it up. She was still kneeling on the floor, looking up at Sarah; she gestured now with the thermometer, her free hand open and supplicating. "I can hear her cough, but I also took her temperature, and I don't think this is the clone... Problem. I think this is something else."

 

Cosima pointed at her with her first and pinky fingers. "Right on, sister! Told you I wasn't getting worse," she crowed. Then her gaze moved to Alison, and she brightened, "Hey Ali, do you think your boy Ramon has any good weed?"

 

* * *

 

 

It took a while, but they eventually managed to coax Cosima to stay in bed while they adjourned to Felix's bed platform, the only part of the apartment where they had any chance of talking without being overheard. Getting Alison to get past being considered the clone dealer took almost as long, but Sarah eventually got her back on topic.

 

“Not to _mention_ marijuana is extremely inadvisable in her condition -”

 

“Yeah, ‘bout that,” Sarah interrupted. “I’m still pretty unclear on what that condition _is_. If she was sick before and she’s sick again, what’s the bet that it’s the same thing comin’ back?”

 

Alison subsided, sitting neatly on the side of the bed. Sarah stood across from her, leaning against the wall. “I see what you’re saying, but I think…” she hesitated. “I know it seems logical that the, the treatment stopped working and she’s going backwards. But if you think about it, her symptoms are different from before.”

 

Sarah opened her mouth, then paused. Sure, Cosima had been sick before, but she hadn’t been surly or petulant, and while she’d been mildly feverish for most of a month, it hadn’t been something you could feel through her clothes. “She’s wheezing now,” she offered cautiously after a moment. Indeed, she could just hear Cosima’s breathing in the next room even now. “Before she coughed, and spluttered and hacked and whatever, but you couldn’t hear her breathing all the time.”

 

Alison nodded vehemently. “Her chest sounds different. It sounds crackly, but before, her breathing sounded wet. And her fever is a lot higher, and she’s…” she searched for a term, concluded politely, “Crabby.”

 

Sarah barked a laugh at that. To Alison’s expectant look, she expanded, “We’re part of a secret clone conspiracy, funded by at least two hugely wealthy institutions and the military, who did years of medical research, and we’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with Cos based on her being a little shit.” She snorted, “Meanwhile, Cos herself won’t help us, and who even knows if Delphine will make it back. We’re fucked.”

 

Alison smiled weakly, looking own, but she clearly didn’t find see the humor in it. Probably that was the benefit of perspective, occasionally leaving the apartment and having contact with the outside world. She wasn’t losing sight of how big a problem they had. And yet, she soldiered on, “So, maybe it isn’t the clone disease, but she’s still sick and getting sicker.”

 

“Well, we might get some help with that, if Delphine does make it back,” Sarah offered. She’d told Alison earlier about the phone call in the night, Cosima’s conviction that Delphine was trying to make it back to them. By her reckoning, it was a faint hope, but better than nothing. “She should have some idea about what’s actually wrong.”

 

Alison sniffed, folding her hands back into her lap, and began to inspect the hem of her blouse. “Yes, but that’s something of a long shot, don’t you think? And it isn’t like she’s the only doctor around.”

 

“Er, what?” Sarah took a step away from the wall. “Which doctor did you have in mind? Does Ramon do house calls, too? Have you got some secret doctor friend you’ve been keeping in your pocket all this time?”

 

Alison dropped her hem, raising her eyes to Sarah’s in irritation. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said shortly, “Of course I don’t have some - some - _secret doctor friend_.  I meant that if it’s something other than the clone lung problem, a regular doctor might be able to help.”

 

She might have a point, and yet - “How are we going to get Cosima to a doctor without the DYAD swooping in and taking her off? Don’t forget she’s not even a local, she’s American!”

 

Alison sighed again, like Sarah was stubbornly refusing to accept an obvious and established point. “I thought by now that you of all people would have realised the benefits of being clones, Sarah. We all look _exactly_ alike.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having a really horrendous week. Please send me any thoughts you may have as encouragement, especially nice ones.


	9. Interlude One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delphine waits in airports, and worries.

The airport was the usual white and beige, a repeating array of slightly chipped tiles and carpet that had seen better days and too many shoes. An endless array of travellers traipsed past, pulling travel bags with squeaking, dodgy wheels and children with squeaking, squabbling voices. They glanced at the signs overhead, squinting for directions, and turned away, exhausted by the bright lights and the distance they’d come to travel; the life sucked out of them by the distance they’d travelled already.

Sound echoed from the tiles in the departure lounge, but to Delphine it seemed strangely muted. Perhaps it was simply that she no longer cared about anything so mundane as the strained tones of the mother berating a running child behind her, or the irritation of the suited man across from her, discussing his stock options on a bluetooth headpiece. They seemed very, very far away, and utterly irrelevant when confronted with her own need to get back to Canada, Toronto, and Cosima.

Cosima. God,  _Cosima_. She’d been so far away, so afraid, and yet unable to return without a way to help her. What would have been the point, after all, of rushing back - risking the wrath of the DYAD along the way - if all she could do was sit by her bedside and pray, hold her hair back when she coughed blood and her life away? So she’d stayed, a prisoner to her own need to provide some form of hope (and to the DYAD, but their close surveillance was almost irrelevant in her desperation), and learned to bite her nails, terrified at the prospect that Cosima might die without her.

One day she’d stared at her phone too long, Cosima on the screen, knowing the number she stared at was blocked anyway (she had a number the DYAD didn’t, Cosima’s ‘clone phone’, labelled as  _organosilicon lab results_  (C-Si an abbreviation she wouldn’t forget) for use only in emergencies), and panicked. If Cosima had died, would anyone have even told her? She jabbed at keys in a frenzy, dialling Cosima’s second number (she knew it by heart anyway) only to drop the phone when it rang.

When she retrieved it, the number on the screen was a single digit different to Cosima’s. That was the only reason she took the call, knowing that the DYAD were watching and testing her at all times. She’d never been so grateful to hear an English accent swear at her down a phone line. Sarah told her that Cosima was alive and that they needed her advice in quick succession, followed moments later by a text containing a skype name.

Contact with Sarah helped some, offered an illusion of having some influence on the outcome. She’d been astounded to hear of Scott’s success building a treatment from Helena’s embryonic stem cells, but frightened too, knowing how much stress Cosima’s body was already under. The only thing she could offer from Frankfurt was advice, recommend how to lower Cosima’s body temperature and get fluids into her, uncomfortable when she asked Sarah if she knew how to find a vein. Now she knew Cosima was alive, but hearing how she was struggling when she was still so far away was its own particular form of torture. Knowing that her brilliant girl hadn’t been lucid in days, had spiked a fever, had her eyes closed so long they lost her goddamn glasses… when Sarah reluctantly told her that Cosima had seized again, estimated her body weight below fifty kilos, Delphine had gotten off the phone and then cried so hard she vomited.

That was weeks ago, weeks of sneaking around her minders and the back halls of the Frankfurt DYAD, but the acrid scent hadn’t left her. The nerves, the fear haven’t left her. But neither had the need to see Cosima, to hold her; to tell her again that she loved her.

From everything Sarah said, Cosima had been getting better, Scott’s stem cell treatment a surprising success. But Sarah’s reassurance alone hadn’t been enough, and there was always the chance of relapse, and Delphine had used that combination of fears to propel her forward, to suck every iota of clone information out of the DYAD possible and then make a run for it. And yet she’d known she might not make it, had made a copy of every byte of data she’d found and couriered it ahead of her before succumbing to the need, at the last, to call Cosima.

More than half of her side of that conversation had been her insistent, repeated, assurances of her love. Cosima had cried, tried to dissuade her from returning, but by then the die had been cast and she’d been mere hours away from her flight. Now, she clung to the memory of Cosima vowing her own love and concern, begging Delphine not to endanger herself. She held the words close to her heart while dissecting every aspect of Cosima’s voice: the pauses for air; the thready note; the emotionality. Her Cosima had never given way to anyone or anything, and she was so afraid that this illness could have changed her into someone Delphine no longer recognised.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Delphine flinched, looked up.

“We’re ready for you,” said the flight attendant, and Delphine nodded, picked up her carry on bag, and walked onto the plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a little different for you all, and hopefully you won't be too disappointed by the time lag between parts. Also, since it's a bit different, I'd really love any and all feedback. Cheers.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, I've made some minor content changes in this chapter to lead into the new chapter coming on the weekend.

Cosima, Felix had decided, made a fucking lousy patient. Okay, so maybe she’d handled the news of her imminent death gracefully, and he couldn’t really hold the several weeks unconscious in his apartment against her, but lately? She was driving him bloody insane.

It had taken far too many attempts to get her out of Alison’s minivan and into the doctor’s office, just to start with. Sarah had eventually talked Cos into going to the doctor’s surgery, apparently convincing her to give it a go through the copious application of cough medicine and ice cream. Alison had detailed all of that in excessive detail in the van on the way to the doctor’s surgery, having picked him up (only slightly hungover) from a cafe on the way to the most remote clinic she could apparently find in Toronto. Convincing Cosima to leave the house, however, turned out to be not nearly so large a challenge as convincing her to leave the car.

Alright, fair enough, she’d fallen asleep in the car, and she was clearly drugged to the eyeballs with cough medication. That did not excuse how excessively difficult it was to wake her up and get her upright, or that she’d somehow managed to misplace her glasses between the front door and the clinic. Or that she’d managed to swat him in the face once he’d finally gotten her approximately conscious.

“So help me Jesus, if that bruises, you will be making up for _weeks_ of income,” he swore, pressing his fingers into his temple. At least it didn’t seem to be bleeding. But Alison had heard him curse, and now he was getting her disapproving look.

“Please remember, Felix, that the way you behave in the next hour will reflect upon _me_ ,” she snapped, and turned to Cosima, trying to tug her clothes into some semblance of order. Alison had made an effort to dress Cosima in some of her own clothes, so that she’d somewhat match the details associated with her ID (other than her face, anyway), but between Cosima’s cropped hair, the way the clothes hung on her, and the contrast between Cosima’s relaxed-at-the-best-of-times but-especially-now-she-was-high posture and Alison’s apparent habit of walking on her tiptoes, it was essentially a lost cause.

Cosima swayed, and blinked at Felix. He groaned. “At least without your glasses they won’t notice that quirk on ‘your’ medical history,” and he took her arm, “Try not to walk into any door frames, alright?”

Cosima leaned on him heavily. At least she was no longer insisting she didn’t in fact need the doctor. Behind them, he heard Alison climb back into her minivan and roll down the driver’s window.

“I’ll be right here if anything goes wrong.” She called.

He didn’t turn around. “For the love of God, Alison, stay there, or we’ll be explaining to the unsuspecting medical professionals of Toronto  why there’s now bloody two of you!”.

* * *

Sarah never even made her own bed, but since she’d now done the washing up and cleaned everything that appeared to be growing from the fridge, it seemed practical to also strip Cosima’s bed and remake it with clean sheets. She hadn’t stopped to do the math, but she was pretty sure she’d made Cosima’s bed more times in the last month than she’d made her own in her entire life. S might even be proud.

That done, she found herself looking around for something else to keep her hands busy. In the past, when she was anxious, she’d have gone out and gotten drunk or picked a fight, but right now she wasn’t convinced that it’d make her feel better about anything. She found herself staring at the kitchen floor and wondering if Felix owned a mop. If she managed to get the ingrown grime out of his tiles, surely Fe and Cos and Alison would be back by then.

On the other hand, maybe she’d die from inhaling mould spores, and then she’d never know if they got back and everything was okay. She grimaced at her own thought process; she clearly wasn’t coping well with their absence. She had tried, without result, not to worry. Felix would surely have turned down the aggravated snark in his texts if everything weren’t okay.

> _Alison won’t want to come back here in a hurry. Cos got overly enthused about a jar of jellybeans at the front desk. There were no survivors._

That had made her smirk, but she was too tense to laugh even at the mental image. On Cosima’s actual results, he’d said nothing, and that had been _two hours ago_.

She looked again at the tiles, then pursed her lips and blew her hair out of her face. Fuck it, she was not Alison and she wasn’t going to wear those damn gloves. She was going to sit on the couch and watch tv like a normal human being.

Ten minutes later, she rearranged the coffee table and then took the garbage out.

* * *

****  


When the door of the loft finally slid open, Sarah was asleep on the couch. The sound of footsteps quickly roused her, though, and she pushed her hair behind her left ear as most of the clone club came in. Cosima was leaning awkwardly on Felix, obviously sleepy, while Alison brought up the rear.

Felix made a beeline for the couch, dumping Cosima unceremoniously beside Sarah, who blinked into greater awareness. He stood up, immediately rotating his head and neck from side to side, “Jesus bloody Christ Cosima, my back is killing me. You couldn’t’ve let me just carry you from the damn car?”

Cosima wriggled up on the couch to put her head onto Sarah’s thigh. “Pretty sure that would _really_ have put your back out, Fe.”

Her head was unexpectedly heavy, and Sarah put her hand on her hair without thinking. It was growing out now, almost to her ears, surprisingly dark and prone to curl. Cos pushed her head into Sarah’s hand, and she petted her hair absently. “Not likely, he carries Kira all the time and you’re scarcely bigger’n her.”

Cos glowered, but didn’t reply, her eyes already drifting shut. Felix was too busy trying to pop his neck to complain further. Sarah looked at Alison, the only person now meeting her gaze, and scowled. “Oi. Tweedle dee and tweedle dumbstruck. Does anyone want to tell me what in the name of hell took so damn long? And what exactly is going on with Cosima?”

Alison winced a little at the cursing, but didn’t try to stop her. “Cosima was right. It isn’t the clone disease,” she paused, adjusting her wedding ring, and Felix cut in, now over trying to re-locate his spinal column. “He says she has bronchitis.”

“Chronic bronchitis,” Alison corrected, pulling her shoulders straighter. “She has chronic bronchitis as a sort of after effect of - the other problem.” She waved her hands as if dispelling Cosima’s prior ill health. “A secondary infection.” She looked at Sarah, then moved to sit into the armchair. “It’s not as dangerous as the, well, the tumours, but it’s not likely to go away for a long time.”

Sarah’s hand stilled on Cosima’s hair. “But - like, can’t they give her antibiotics and shit? Isn’t that what they’re _for_?”

Felix dropped onto the far end of the couch, maneuvering around Cosima’s feet, then turned at the hip to undo her shoe laces. Cosima didn’t move. “The doctor said it’s probably viral. So, antiobiotics won’t do anything. He wrote us some scripts for things to help, but it’s not going to fix her in a hurry.”

“We stopped on the way to fill her prescriptions,” Alison added, brushing back her bangs. “We have those, at least,” and she patted her handbag, beside her on the floor.

Sarah stared at Alison and her bag, then closed her eyes, dropping her head onto the back of the couch. “I can’t believe this. All that to get her to a doctor and the guy wouldn’t even treat her?”

“Well, he did see her,” Alison pointed out reasonably. “And he did treat her - well, treated me, I suppose. And he gave her a script for electrolytes and better antipyretics… fever reducers,” she added, to Sarah’s blank look. “Antiobiotics don’t cure everything, you know.”

Sarah put her hand over her eyes.  She needed a minute. “At least it’s not the clone thing comin’ back,” she said finally.

“It’s not the clone whatsit,” Felix confirmed, waving one hand as Alison had done, before he sighed and added, “We really do need another name for that,” and dropped Cosima’s shoes onto the floor. “It’s some all bloody new bitch thing for her to deal with. And this one is probably infectious.”

Sarah lifted her hand and stared at him. Beside her, Alison nodded. “Fuckin’ fantastic,” Sarah said faintly. She remembered her other grudge. “And what in the name of all things holy took you guys so bloody long?”

****  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had some rough months. Please keep that in mind and leave feedback that validates the effort that goes into this fic!


	11. ... and things remain unfinished by the end of the day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, you guys, I'm back! Against all odds, this fic will continue and I do want to one day finish it. No guarantees on when, but 3x10 gave me a bit of a kick in the pants to actually sort out the things that the OB writers apparently don't want to. Cosima is still sick, we still don't have a good treatment for her, and ffs, Alison has a body buried in her garage. We never found out why Delphine was sent to Frankfurt. I'm not done with this yet, even if I'm not going to sort out all those things myself, I still want to raise them, damnit.

It took a while to get rid of Alison. Despite how hard it had been to get hold of her at all lately, once she arrived, she never seemed to want to leave. Sarah had to listen to a blow by blow description of the many embarrassments Cosima had caused her in the doctor’s waiting room, then a twice-repeated description of which medications she could or couldn’t take together. The first time she tried listening, but by the third, she was willing to throw every pill in a baggy together and let Cosima take her pick. She was pretty sure Cosima wasn’t above doing that just for kicks.

Alison had just begun rummaging in the freezer, determined to locate yet another litre of her vegetable soup - even if “chicken soup contains more nutrients and is more beneficial when you’re unwell!” - when her phone began to ring. Sarah rolled her eyes heavenward. What were the chances that this phone call would actually get Alison out of her hair long enough to get Cosima to bed? She was top of the class when it came to what Cosima should or shouldn’t eat, but she’d proven utterly useless when it came to manhandling Cos anywhere.

If her hurried, quiet tone was any indicator, it was Donnie on the other end of the line. Good. That meant Alison would probably be out of her hair shortly, and Sarah could concentrate on getting Cosima to stop drooling on her thigh in favour of getting into bed.

Alison hung up the phone. “I need to go, Donnie says the kids need me,” she announced, and in Sarah’s lap, Cosima whined and hugged onto a couch cushion. Alison came closer at the noise, and Sarah tried to hold back her frustration. “Do you want me to help get her into bed?” Alison asked.

Felix, lurking sulkily around his bed platform, snorted. “Pretty sure we’ve established that that doesn’t work, Alison,” he announced, and jumped down to the lower floor. When he caught Sarah’s eye, she nodded to him, and he ducked down and slid his hands under Cosima’s back a gently. He lifted enough that Sarah could move, and she edged carefully around Cosima’s to slide out. She held Cosima’s head long enough for him to readjust his hold and get one hand under her knees, then he was standing with Cosima in his arms and taking her to her bed. Alison watched, already folding the throw blanket on couch, as Sarah ducked past Felix to yank down Cosima’s covers before he laid her down.

“She’s really hot, Sarah,” he murmured, quietly so Alison wouldn’t hear.

Sarah tried to smile. “You told me that the first time you met her, Fi.”

“Aw, piss off, wouldja?” he continued, “You know that’s not what I mean.”

She lost the smile. “Yeah, I know.”

They stood and looked down at Cosima for a moment, limbs loose beneath the sheets, and her breathing always audible now. It wasn’t as frightening as her seizures had been, but it couldn’t have been clearer how unwell she was. Sarah reached over and, considering, pulled the blanket up to Cosima’s waist and no further.

Alison cleared her throat, and Felix dropped his hand from Sarah’s back as she turned. “I’m going to go now, but I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ve written down the medications Cosima should be taking and when, all right? It’s on the fridge. And if there’s anything I’ve missed, you just let me know and I’ll bring it tomorrow,” she promised. “You should think about getting a cool cloth for her, Sarah, her fever’s really high. And you both need to be very careful about germ control! Make sure you wash your hands a lot,” she pointed at each of them threateningly.

Sarah nodded vaguely, only halfway listening. Felix noticed, and took over, finding Alison’s coat for her and promising to give Cosima her meds at measured intervals as he finally ushered Alison out the door.

* * *

 

It took Sarah a while to settle. The day had been stressful for all of them, but Alison and Felix had at least had Cosima in front of them as they trucked her around to doctors and pharmacies and (Felix confessed guiltily) for icecream at the store next to the pharmacy. Apparently Cosima had been borderline uncontrollable when feverish and hopped up on pain medication. Sarah, on the other hand, had spend the day trying very hard not to imagine Cosima on a respirator or, worse, back in the hands of the DYAD. She was bone tired, and yet buzzing with energy. It was a bad combination, one that had her still wanting to pick fights for no good reason.

If Vic had been around, that’s exactly what would have happened. He would have said the wrong thing at just the wrong moment, and it would have ended with possessions thrown and at least one of them bleeding. Now, with Felix watching her with wary eyes and Cosima restlessly asleep, she found herself pacing, running her hands through her errant hair.

“Can you chill out, Sarah? You’re going to wake her up,” Fe told her eventually, blatantly ignoring that a nuclear warhead could have gone off without waking Cosima right about then.

Sarah groaned, and dropped down into an armchair. “Fuck, Fe. What a goddamn day.”

He snorted. “Now that’s the truth. I spent half of it chasing little miss cranky, and half goddamn petrified. Not to mention the part where I was _both_.”

At that, she had to laugh. “Clone club is not for the weak of heart, brother,” she told him, and paused. “Hey,where’s that bottle of whiskey gone to?”

“Probably under the table... ,” she shot him a pleading look, “Oh get it yourself you lazy bugger.”

She laughed at him, and rolled sideways off the chair to look under the table. If only she’d vacuumed in here earlier, she’d probably have found it earlier, not to mention kept the dust bunnies out of her hair. “Jesus, do you clean?” she asked him, fishing out the bottle.

“Alison’s pretty much taken that over for me, honestly, you should let her know we’re due again,” Fe told her, inspecting his nails. “Although I do notice the kitchen floor is looking _particularly_ shiny.”

Sarah rolled her eyes and uncapped the bottle, swigging from it where she still knelt on the floor. “Nice to know clone club is working out for someone, dude.” She was mid-mouthful when someone tried to open the loft door.

Sarah leapt to her feet, Felix doing the same, thankfully silently, beside her. “ _Holy shit_ ,” she saw him mouth, as they stared at each other, panicked.

The door, blocked by a screwdriver as usual, hadn’t moved. But there were no footsteps, and whoever it wasn’t clearly hadn’t gone away. Moments passed, and then there was an almost hesitant knock.

“Maybe it’s Helena,” Fe whispered after a moment.

“Maybe.” Sarah tried to think. Who else had a reason to come to the flat? They hadn’t heard from Mrs S, Cal was still away with Kira, Paul was MIA, Art knew better than to show up at Fe’s without warning. Not to mention that all of DYAD probably knew how to find them. There was no way to frame it that didn’t make an unexpected guest unwelcome.

And yet... which of those people would have knocked? Her mind raced ahead.

“Come with me,” she ordered Felix, and he followed her to the door in time to hear another knock. She was almost certain now, but she planted Felix to the left of the door, out of immediate sight, and armed him with the wooden leg of a dismantled easel. “Cover me,” she told him, and he met her eyes before nodding firmly, adjusting his grip on the wood.

Decision made, she didn’t pause to think. She went to the door handle, took a breath, and yanked the screwdriver out before pulling the door open.

“Hello, Sarah.”

She looked exhausted, overly thin, a thin sweater draping her form beneath loose curls hanging limp. “Delphine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me at geoclaire.tumblr.com, where you can hear me speculate about fandoms and get updates on my novel-in-progress, a lesbian ghost story set at Sydney's Quarantine Station. It's exactly as creepy as it sounds.


	12. things we have dreamed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wake the cophine shippers, Delphine is back!

It took far too long to find the apartment.

She had been there before. She had followed Cosima there from America, and now she was following her again. Only, last time it hadn't seemed to be down so many narrow streets and around dubious corners. It had been dark, before, and now it was barely twilight, but somehow it took so much longer.

Last time, she had dreaded arriving. Perhaps that was what had made Felix's loft seem to appear so swiftly. Now, she has yearned to be here for so long that any time spent searching is unbearable.

And then suddenly the street is familiar, the graffiti recognisable, and she has arrived. She knocked, and knocked again, and wondered if she should have warned Sarah first. But no, she couldn’t have, there wasn’t time and she couldn’t have risked it. And then the door opened.

Delphine stumbled inside, clumsy with exhaustion, but quick to yank the door closed behind her. She saw the anxious looks Sarah and Felix were giving her, reassured quickly, "I do not think anyone is following me. But there is no reason to linger about, no?"

Sarah nodded rapid assent, Felix a more sceptical presence behind her. Delphine saw him put something heavy down, and looked away. She plucked at her scarf, began to unwind it, and Felix stepped forward sharply.

"For all the precautions you've been taking, I hope you're doing more than hoping no one is following you now," he warned. "We have enough problems without starting smuggling you or clones about."

His tone was harsh, and in another life, Delphine would have reeled. Today, she stared dully at him, waiting for more.

Sarah seemed as taken aback by his tone. "Go easy, Fe," she muttered, and he rounded on her.

"Bloody Delphine just bloody showed up on _my_ doorstep after weeks of telling us it was too dangerous to even be in regular contact. Forgive me if I want to be sure she isn't leading more trouble straight to us when she bloody appears out of nowhere!" He shouted, and Sarah squared her shoulders, stepping into him.

Something was wrong, Delphine realised slowly. Before, Sarah had been tense and worried for Cosima, but she had always had an underlying belief that things were under control. Felix had not been rearing and on edge. Now, tension simmered, ready to break the surface. She didn’t know what had changed, but she could assuage one fear.

"No, Felix. I was careful. They will not even know I am in the country, yet." She reassured, relieved when they turned towards her, and away from their rising fight.

Sarah quirked an eyebrow. "You'll have to teach me that trick," she murmured, and Felix snorted beside her. Sarah’s posture tensed again, but all he said was,

"And when they do know?"

Delphine shrugged, suddenly beyond weary. "Then we will have another problem," she answered. "But I cannot do anything about that right now. I can only tell you that DYAD does not know where I am at this moment. They will surely suspect, and I will have to stay off the radar. That's unavoidable. But please.” and she finally exhaled, her shoulders slumping in her exhaustion. “Where is Cosima?"

They’d begun to relax, but now Sarah’s mouth went taut. "She's sleeping," she answered tightly, and Felix jerked his head towards a darkened corner of the apartment.

Delphine could just see a single bed tucked away there, a slender form just visible beneath tossed covers. She took a single step, and then Sarah stepped in front of her.

"Delphine, wait."

Delphine nodded, putting down her bag, and tossing away her jacket. "I have just snuck across two international boundaries and spent a month hiding from the DYAD to be here, Sarah."

"She's sleeping," Sarah tried weakly, and Delphine stepped into her space and looked her in the eye.

"I want Cosima well. I do not intend to wake her. But you have until I have washed my hands and face so as not to infect her with anything to tell me anything else I need to know, because I came back for her." She paused, waiting for Sarah to speak, but she seemed mute. "No?"

"She's sick, Delphine." Felix, not Sarah.

She’d been sleepwalking, moving from one place to the next and one challenge to the next from sheer impetus. She’d come back for Cosima, started on a long path only seeking her, and now found herself stopped at the final pass.

She lost all momentum, jerking to a stop like a wind-up toy out of twists. And stared unfocused eyes at Felix.  

He went on, "She got better, but then she got, like, wacky again. Her fever came back, she was irritable, argued about everything. So we took her to the doctor, pretending to be Alison, and he says she has bronchitis now."

She remembered to breathe. "When...?"

"She went to the doctor today." Sarah cut in now, softer than her brother but the message brutal in its unexpected cruelty. "He says she'll recover, but it's viral, so no good drugs. She has to rest or she'll get pneumonia, and she's infectious, and we haven't worked out what to do."

For a moment, just one, she allowed herself to stand still, and close her eyes. She had thought... she had known Cosima was getting better, so it wasn't outlandish or extreme to have wanted to hold her. To touch her, to kiss her, to hear her laugh. To argue with her, try to stop her smoking marijuana. To hear her voice.

She opened her eyes. This time, they didn’t block her when she went to the kitchen. Delphine poured herself a glass of water, and then unbuttoned her sleeves to wash her hands and wrists comprehensively with hot water and dish soap. Every nail, every knuckle, was scoured. She bypassed the kitchen towels and wiped her hands clean on a paper towel before drinking her water. And then she went to Cosima.

Felix had been right: Cosima was sleeping, and she was feverish. She set her hand on her forehead, considering, and then slid it up to touch the soft fuzz of her hair. It was darker than she remembered, or perhaps that was the light sweat she could feel under her fingertips. But her hair was curly now, curlier even than Sarah's, and somehow that was more of a shock than the loss of her dreadlocks.

She looked down, finally, at Cosima's sleeping face.

She wore no eyeliner, no glasses, but her face was singular and so dear. Delphine could not imagine how Sarah had ever impersonated her successfully, could not remember how she had been taken in for even the minute it had taken to work it out. How could it matter that they were genetically identical when they were all utterly singular?

She let her hand slip down to cup Cosima's cheek. Her thumb slid, and ever so lightly, touched the cupid's bow of her lips.

Cosima moved in her sleep, grumbling something indeterminable about cysteine sequencing. Delphine pulled back, and tried not to smile, or to cry.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even going to apologise, just know that yes, I intend to finish this fic someday one day.
> 
> In the meantime, you can come bug me about this and anything else at geoclaire.tumblr.com, where I post many pictures of my dog and also attractive women.


	13. family is the home your heart makes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet y'all thought you'd never see me again. I'll admit even I had my doubts.
> 
> I have been grateful to all of my readers, and I hope that I have in some way met your expectations with this conclusion.

   She woke slowly, warmer than she remembered going to bed. Not that - now she thought about it – she remembered going to bed. She breathed, pondering the discrepancy for a long moment, and then the dryness of her throat registered and she lost the warm cocoon she’d woken up in as she choked, bolting upright to cough and cough again, cooler air teasing and scratching in her throat.

   The bed moved, and an arm came around her. Another slid to her back, rubbing firmly between her shoulder blades and somehow easing the scratchy dryness that had forced her upright. She blinked, a familiar scent rushing through her with her air as she inhaled, oxygen coming easier with each breath. She looked up.

  “Holy shit, I’m dying,” she said faintly, and the haze of warmth and blonde hair that was Delphine came closer, kissing her forehead before reaching around her, coming back with a glass of water.

  “Not while I’m here,” she promised, giving Cosima the glass.

  She could barely close her fingers to hold it, still spellbound at the sight of Delphine and the wonder of her presence. She’d dreamed, so many times… but always she had come back to a reality where her sickness was killing her and Delphine was disappeared, best scenario fled.

   “How’d you get here?” she murmured, once she’d gotten a mouthful down. Delphine took the glass back from her.

   “Airplane,” she said simply, reaching up to touch Cosima’s forehead. She clicked her tongue at the temperature, offering her the glass again.

   Cosima let her hold it to her lips, swallowing half the contents in a long gulp. Part of it caught in her still itchy throat, and she closed her eyes, feeling them bulge as she forced the water down.

   “Yeah okay but… here. How are you here?” she asked again, once she could speak without spitting it up, and Delphine took the glass away from her, putting it under the bed. She pressed at Cosima’s shoulder, urging her down onto the bed.

   “Later, _ma petite_ ,” she promised. “I’ll explain later.” 

 

* * *

 

 

   When she woke again, it was because Sarah was draping a damp handcloth over her face. Instinctively, she jerked away from the cold surface, and Sarah swore.

   “Jesus, Cos. You wanna make this a little easier?”

   “S’cold,” she complained, but a voice behind Sarah cut across them both.

  “I will do that,” Delphine said. Cosima had to squint to make her out, but she was letting herself off the couch before making her way to the pair of clones, squatting down by Cosima’s bed. Sarah relinquished the cloth to her, apparently reluctant, but Delphine didn’t seem to notice. She leaned over the bed and peeled the covers back enough to free her hands. One at a time, she wiped the cloth over Cosima’s skin, careful to go between her fingers and up around her wrists.

   Like this, the cool cloth was pleasant against her hot skin, the water evaporating to cool her down. Delphine gave her an evaluating look before raising the cloth to her face, and Cosima wrinkled her nose, but Delphine didn’t try and drape it over her. Instead she used it to wipe her face and neck, before easing it gently over her lips.

  Cosima let her do it, and once she’d finished, Delphine reached to the floor beside her and found Cosima’s glasses. She didn’t try and do it herself, only handed them to Cosima to put on. When she did, nudging them up her nose – they seemed overly willing to slip, like she’d somehow lost weight in the bridge of her nose – she found that Delphine had miraculously not left fingerprints on the lenses.

  She blinked behind the thick lenses, feeling more like herself than she could remember in days when she looked over Delphine’s shoulder and found Sarah, lurking in the half light and watching her interaction with Delphine. She smiled, and Sarah took a step or two closer, sat herself at the far end of the bed.

  “Glad to see you in the land of the living, Cos,” she said. “Now that you’re back with us, perhaps the good doctor will start sharing some secrets, starting with how she got here and who knows about it.”

   Delphine didn’t seem to mind the sharpness of Sarah’s tone, but Cosima did. She shot her a dark look, which Sarah shrugged off, looking back at Delphine. She eased up from her squat, looking between the two of them, before rolling onto an easier position kneeling.

   “It is not a complicated story,” she said simply. “In Germany, I found allies – that is how I found the procedure to make the treatments Scott prepared for you, Cosima. When DYAD moved me to France instead, I lost contact with some of them, and it no longer seemed worth the risk of staying. So I made it look like I was letting my guard down, relaxing, and one night after I’d made a point of going out and being visible, I left home in the middle of the night and bolted. That was not so hard. But then I needed to come here, and I did not have a fake ID.”

   Sarah had listened to all of this with suspicious eyes, although she’d nodded once when Delphine had alluded to having her watchers let their guards down. But when this last came up, Cosima could see her defences come back up. She poked at her with a toe, heavy under the bed clothes, but Sarah wouldn’t look at her.

   “How’d you fly back, then?” she asked, and Cosima poked harder in vain.

   “The only way I could think of,” Delphine answered. “I had to register for the flight with my own ID. But I did that at the last moment, and within the airport itself, so it was difficult for DYAD to do anything. The more difficult part was at this end, but for that I had a plan… I have a friend, you see. She is a, how do you say it, a flight attendant. We went to boarding school, were very close for a long time. She was surprised to hear from me, but when I contacted her she suggested how to go about it – to book from the airport itself, and so on. And then, on the flight…” she trailed off.

   Sarah looked lost, but Cosima thought she’d picked up the thread. “They let the crew off first,” she croaked, startled by the sound of her own voice. She swallowed, and tried again. “They let the crew leave the plane first, so they get a headstart on all the queues…”

   “Yes,” Delphine agreed. “Therese gave me a spare uniform to change into, and I left the plane with the other attendants. I kept my face down and walked straight past a man I recognised… it does not matter. I got by the men they had waiting for me, and then I took a cab, paid cash, stayed out of sight. It took a few days to be sure, but no one should have followed me.”

   Cosima beamed at her, tilting her head on the pillow with the full force of her smile. Delphine returned it with more restraint.

   “Alright,” Sarah decided. “Probably we don’t need to worry too much for now about anyone following you in. Next person in that door’s more likely to be Alison with more soup, s’the only thing this invalid has been letting us get in her.”

   “I hate soup.” Cosima muttered. Delphine took her hand in response, wrapping their fingers together.

   “But it will help, _mon chou_ ,” she said soothingly, then turned her attention to Sarah. “She has been eating enough?”

  Sarah squirmed uncomfortably at the end of the bed. “Enough’s hard to say, but we get a couple quarts of soup in her a day, probably. And some of Alison’s stuff,” she added, gesturing at the paraphernalia of medications that littered Cosima’s newly acquired bedside table.

   “Mmm.” Delphine leaned over, examining the containers. “Yes, these should help. Bronchitis is… well, it is not good. But if we can keep you fed, _mon amour_ , and get enough of these in you to avoid you damaging your lungs…” she shrugged. “Winter is not so much longer. The warmer air will help, and in the meantime we help your body all we can.”

   Sarah was watching them both with measuring eyes, and Cosima gave her a half smile before turning onto her side, changing her grip in Delphine’s hand.

   “So it’s not all so bad,” she said, caressing her thumb over Delphine’s fingers.

   “It is somewhat risky. We will need to be careful, and you, well, you probably cannot smoke marijuana any more,” Delphine admitted.

   Cosima wrinkled her nose, then shrugged. “Not like I hadn’t worked that out before. It’s still better’n dying. And I can get an inhaler,” she added, half joking.

   The other women raised their eyebrows at her in a move that they could have synchronised. She looked at the both of them, leaning over her sickbed and her limbs pressing against each of them. These two women who’d gotten her through this, gotten her this far.

   Her family.

   “It’ll be fine,” she promised them both, and reached to the water glass Delphine must have placed on the bedside table. She took a mouthful, swallowing past the itch and pain in her throat, and smiled at them. “I’m going to be fine.”

   And for once, the scratchiness in her throat she'd become so accustomed to, through months and beds and doctors waiting rooms, through endless bowls of soup and Felix's baths and Sarah's glasses of water, through fever dreams and fears and delirium, that scratchiness wasn't there.  For once, she didn’t need to cough at all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed this, I am grateful. Please let me know below, or at geoclaire.tumblr.com
> 
> You may also want to check out the novel I am writing. It's a historically based ghost story featuring WLW, ghost ships, the Spanish Flu, and creepy true stories. If you're interested, check it out and support me at: https://www.patreon.com/geoclaire?ty=h
> 
> Patreon sponsors get access to more details and background, exclusive fic, and other benefits. Check it out


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